Padded lampposts for distracted texters being tested in London

According to a recent report, human beings are becoming so incredibly stupid that they require cushioned lamppost bases so that when they run into them they don't mess up their idiotic faces. Apparently, a study in the UK found that one in ten people actually managed to hurt themselves by walking into a post while peering down at their mobile phone screen. The mishaps -- called "walking and texting" injuries -- have spurred the charity Living Streets to launch the padded-post-pilot scheme in Brick Lane, London. It seems that if all goes well, there are plans to roll out the idiot-proof system in Birmingham, Manchester, and Stupidton.

Update: Thanks Mike, video now added after the break. Did he really say "higgily hoopily?"

[Image courtesy Yahoo! News]

[Ben @ Mar 6th 2008 5:44AM]

Might as well pad up the rest of the city...

[yoshi @ Mar 6th 2008 6:59AM]

Why not let natural selection do it's thing?

[Zaisan @ Mar 6th 2008 7:26AM]

Sorry to be a grammar-Nazi, but maybe natural selection should also
apply to people who don't understand the difference between it's and
its.

[Tom Boucher @ Mar 6th 2008 8:00AM]

just bubble wrap the whole place, apparently you could even jump off buildings then.

seriously though, what's next, big foam bumpers on cars for people who don't look while texting & crossing the street? then, we have to foam up the people too because if you bump into someone you could offend them or get hurt.

Why not put everyone in big hamster balls so that they can just play pinball on the way to wherever they are going.

[yoshi @ Mar 6th 2008 8:20AM]

Meh, you're not sorry at all. You're just a dick.

[AlexTheSane @ Mar 6th 2008 8:51AM]

Is he a dick? Perhaps.
Is he correct? Absolutely.

[Wildness @ Mar 6th 2008 10:28AM]

Finally, something that might thin the herd a bit...death by text messaging. These people, obviously incapable of survival in today's "real" world, would do a more thorough job of eliminating their genes from the pool if they would walk in front of moving cars instead of running into lampposts.

[Wildness @ Mar 6th 2008 10:33AM]

Finally, something that might thin the herd a bit...death by text messaging. These people, obviously incapable of survival in today's "real" world, would do a more thorough job of eliminating their genes from the pool if they would walk in front of moving cars instead of running into lampposts.

[fanman @ Mar 6th 2008 11:02AM]

Surely a more economical approach would be to rap the texter in foam?

[Nick @ Mar 6th 2008 12:08PM]

I always say "people walk how they drive". If this city can't even multi-task while walking, I'm scared to even see what happeneds when they have a phone, radio, climate control, navigational system, and stearing wheel to distract them.

Out with "walk and chew gum" phrase. We now must start to brag about being able to "walk and text".

[ozzzy @ Mar 6th 2008 3:05PM]

Zaisan, that would get rid a lot of non-English speaking people...

Though your grammar policing skills are superb, you may want to think before you speak/write.

[New user @ Mar 8th 2008 9:25PM]

This has to be a hoax

[dervheid @ Mar 6th 2008 5:46AM]

Please!
This is suerly just 26 days early!

[souravgh @ Mar 6th 2008 6:02AM]

ha ha, that was my first thought too.

[boss sauce @ Mar 6th 2008 7:07AM]

You mean April 1, aka everyone's-a-troll day?

I'm blacking out the interwebs on 4/1/08.

[Mark @ Mar 6th 2008 5:48AM]

This is ridiculous. Living Streets must be P.R. hungry right now.

[Shadowise @ Mar 6th 2008 5:48AM]

Even though that sounds like a completely ridiculous idea, I will have to check this out when I'm down there next...

[JohnSearle @ Mar 6th 2008 5:49AM]

Sweet, I live in Stupidton!

[Alex R @ Mar 8th 2008 4:38PM]

Sometimes I am shocked by people's stupidity. Even though I myself has done this once, when I was peering down at my newly purchased Burnout 3 for the Xbox 1 and I walked into a pillar in the shopping centre. Damn, that was embarrasing...

[dervheid @ Mar 6th 2008 5:49AM]

Damn my typing.

This is SURELY just 26 days early!

[soul7963 @ Mar 6th 2008 5:54AM]

Couldn't we just pad the people?

By the looks of the picture he did well to miss the bin!

[mister_s @ Mar 6th 2008 6:00AM]

that actually makes more sense, pad one in 10 ppl, will be cheaper n more aesthetic.

[Trevsweb @ Mar 6th 2008 6:19AM]

lol nice one mister s

[Ignatius @ Mar 6th 2008 6:57AM]

At least you'd be able to pick out the mentally deranged.

[Ignatius @ Mar 6th 2008 6:00AM]

If anything, don't pad them. The next time the retard runs into the pole, he'll either learn his lesson or be knocked out. Either way, I'd be satisfied.

[Wolfticket @ Mar 6th 2008 6:07AM]

Go one further, put big spikes on the poles. The problem will solve itself.

[Peter @ Mar 6th 2008 12:11PM]

that made me laugh! nice one :)

[Wwhat @ Mar 6th 2008 6:52AM]

I'm more in favour of 20K volts, for the humorous leaping effect, plug you avoid the blood and spreading diseases issues.

[superted @ Mar 6th 2008 12:03PM]

either way, that padding there is fine for him 'going' to get his lunch, but 'coming back' he's going to split his head clean open

[i.Ninja @ Mar 6th 2008 3:46PM]

@Wolfticket:

Hahaha...Textality. I like it!

[T-Vince @ Mar 6th 2008 6:01AM]

You can really see it's a beta version. What if you come from the other side? And a audio warning signal would be nice, specialy with traffic and all. So it must be really loud.

But keep up the good work, let's make this world a better place!

;)

[Jeff @ Mar 6th 2008 11:25AM]

they really need to think about how it looks... because that looks ridiculous.

[ChrisToepFurAitch @ Mar 6th 2008 5:09PM]

Did he really say "higgily hoopily?"

No. He said "higgledy piggledy", suggesting the random nature of street obstructions.

[slum @ Mar 6th 2008 6:07AM]

yes YES! cameras, audio mood adjusters, vitamin distribution control, padded corners.. the test chamber is almost complete!

[superted @ Mar 6th 2008 6:12AM]

this is a PR stunt... volkswagon did the same thing a few years ago in the UK

they padded lamposts near their billboards to say "people are so amazed at our prices that they're not looking where they are going"

it didn't work either.

[Mojo_Yugen @ Mar 6th 2008 9:29AM]

That's what I'm thinking also.

On the other hand every time I read about someone driving off an unfinished bridge or something because they were following their GPS it seems to be a Brit...so maybe. ;)

[superted @ Mar 6th 2008 9:47AM]

that's very true.. I did nearly drive a rented van into a 6ft 2" height restriction the other day because of this very problem.

[insipid @ Mar 6th 2008 10:40AM]

I think it's a stunt as well. When I saw a couple video crews there the other day (presumably filming the news segment and other related video) all of the pads were 118.com-branded, and I notice they're not in the ITN clip. Plus they had the guys in the stupid 118 get-up bumping into the pads and passers-by.

[G5 Power @ Mar 6th 2008 6:12AM]

I vote to leave the Lampposts un-padded, by doing this we will be able to see Darwinism at work. Those who keep walking into lampposts will eventually become brain damaged and unable to have kids (especially if there are those damn groin height bollards), this means the genes that cause them to walk into lampposts will fade out and future generations will be free to roam and text at will.

Thank you Charles Darwin.

[JohnSearle @ Mar 6th 2008 7:33AM]

Not that I really want to pick apart your joke, but I don't think brain damage implies sterility. In fact, lower intelligence is usually correlated (perhaps spuriously) with larger family size. If you want to sterilize the people walking into these poles, then you're going to have to look to something other than just leaving them un-padded.

[Andrew @ Mar 6th 2008 7:52AM]

I vote to put large spikes on the lampposts, to aid the darwinist process

[technophobe @ Mar 6th 2008 8:00AM]

natural selection has nothing to do with Darwinism, natural selection is a fact. Darwinism is a theory in which one species "magically" becomes another

[vdogg89 @ Mar 6th 2008 3:31PM]

somehow you believe that walking into a pole while texting is a genetic trait? are you serious? Your little theory is ridiculous. Should we also kill anyone who is handicap physically or mentally? Because that would also get rid of the weak people as you think.

[JohnSearle @ Mar 6th 2008 9:36AM]

@technophobe

From Wikipedia:
--
Darwinism is a term for the underlying theory in those ideas of Charles Darwin concerning evolution and natural selection. Discussions of Darwinism usually focus on evolution by natural selection, but sometimes Darwinism is taken to mean evolution more broadly, or other ideas not directly associated with the work of Darwin.
--

Notice that it states that Darwinism is slightly ambiguous, and is sometimes used to refer to the process of evolution through natural selection. So the usage of 'Darwinism' by the OP doesn't seem incorrect to me.

On a side note, there is the Darwin Awards that these people might want to try out for... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_awards

[Phil Perman @ Mar 6th 2008 6:16AM]

I'm ashamed to say I have walked into a lamppost while using my phone, although I was entering in a friends phone number rather then texting, although he was standing next to me at the time so that just made it worse.

It was night too, things are hard to see at night. They really should stick big lights on the top of those things to make them easier to see..... oh wait

[Wwhat @ Mar 6th 2008 6:54AM]

than*

[John @ Mar 6th 2008 9:32PM]

I can't recall doing this before, but I've certainly walked into things because I wasn't looking where I was going, and it's never occurred to me to blame the f***ing lamppost. For once I really hope this is a PR stunt for someone...

[Gizmo @ Mar 6th 2008 6:20AM]

First we had the phenomenon of "smexting", where UK smokers who are forced outside to smoke spend their time texting. I guess that makes this "wexting" then.

[fgpx78 @ Mar 6th 2008 6:23AM]

I once run into a pole. Sure it was hurful! But...seriously...I knew I was the idiot, not the pole being not cushioned.....

[technophobe @ Mar 6th 2008 8:03AM]

was the Polish man you ran into alright?